


Bad Times at The Bonn Nui

by threefacade



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Fake Bar Fight, M/M, Other, We call this next song "Idiots In Love" or something, You can't call it hurt/comfort if they both don't know how to handle emotions, deus ex benny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 01:59:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16965576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threefacade/pseuds/threefacade
Summary: "Sometimes, you are inhuman and lecherous, and the fabled Ex Lux of Los Angeles is thousands of miles away, and you settle into the red lights and dark draped walls of the Bonn Nui, because it’s all there is for you, here.  That’s the nature of a good night, it’s just that: Good, and night."Watching your son burn alive, accidentally invoking spirits, it's a sign that everyone's terrible and doing terribly, and are in need of a good time.





	Bad Times at The Bonn Nui

**Author's Note:**

> "Hey isn't the Ex Lux the nightclub from the Lucifer series?" Yes, and by way of me being a Bastard To Canons and having fun with my life, anything in this chain of events is more of the Vertigo extended universe.
> 
> Thank You And Goodnight!

   Nobody walks into Bonn Nui Barroom because they’re happy to be in the outskirts of the French Quarter and aching for a glass of bourbon. You come to Bonn Nui because you hate yourself, you hate someone, or because your car spontaneously broke down just outside of the Seventh Ward and you don’t have any money for the carousel bar at the Monteleone. The other, less popular options reek of lechery and humanity, and the wrong side of Lake Pontchartrain usually spells death for the unwitting traveler.   
  
   Sometimes, you are inhuman and lecherous, and the fabled Ex Lux of Los Angeles is thousands of miles away, and you settle into the red lights and dark draped walls of the Bonn Nui, because it’s all there is for you, here.  That’s the nature of a good night, it’s just that: Good, and night.   
  
   So, when beleaguered patrons walk in to lay witness to a gaunt-faced bartender sitting on the floor amidst a graveyard of broken barstools and broken bottles, they think nothing of it. They skirt around the bartender, and the dark-haired man sprawled out on the floor next to him, head propped in his lap. They walk to the bar and find unbroken seats, drink from unbroken glasses, ignore the distant hollow shriek of a man in the alley behind the bar, and they listen to the old tequila brass record spin itself to death.   
  
   It is the Bonn Nui, and they are having a good, bad night.   
  
  The dark-haired man sputters to life in a post-fight stupor, hand reaching up to grab and paw at the shoulder of the bartender’s collared shirt to get his attention, which had permanently affixed itself to the back door where the screaming was seeping its way through the bar.   
  
   “Oi, Mickey-“ His voice is something like a violent hangover finally coming undone, free hand grabbing to wipe the blood from his unshaven face. “Th’ right fuck are we doin’ on the floor?”   
  
   Mickey raises a brow above the round frames of his glasses, looking down at the fallen patron. “You got piss drunk, insulted a werewolf, got a full punch right to the head. Knocked you flat on your ass. So, Benny took him out back, as per the ‘No Physical Fights in My Bar’ rule.” A languid hand absently fusses with a cut over the vampire’s head, smudging the blood away. Mickey could assume it was probably from a claw of some kind, and looked a little too shallow to be a real worry. He barely gets a holy word out, his first-aid practice coming to a halt before the interruption comes again.

  
   A scream faintly resonates behind the blaring of an ensemble of trumpets before warping into a mutant howl, and the other blinks up at Mickey, almost incredulous as if trying to figure out what anything meant in that exact moment.   
“That ain’t even an answer to half the problem, why’re ya on the’ floor?” He says, drawing slowly. His face twitches slightly at the continued smudging along another cut flush against his orbital bone. “But, thanks fer lettin’ Benny and Lucky knock Kujo’s teeth in.”   
  
   Mickey scoffs at the mention of the bat, a coy nickname Cassidy had insisted Benny take to heart for the sheer pun of “Getting lucky”, “Feeling lucky”, and a menagerie of other Neosporin-jagerbomb fueled double entendres from bar crawls past. A bouncer with a sense of humor under the stone-faced exterior was truly a blessing, even when he insists it’s certainly  _ not  _ the name of his bat.

  “Cass, you wound me,” he starts; hand limply tapping against his sternum with a theatrical flourish. “As if I ain’t one for breaking a bunch of busted chairs and drinkware in storage to make it look like we just got in a real bad fight with someone.” He sucks air between his teeth, patting Cassidy’s chest with an aimless vigor. “I told ‘em we won, anyways.”   
Cassidy finally sits up, a sputtering laugh rattling between the two of them, his comment about “Fuckin’ magicians” catching Mickey’s attention, fully. He had mentioned a scuffle in Vegas, once. Something with a stage magician leading to an incredibly brief arrest. The sentiment isn’t lost on him, though- he refuses to leave the comment unattended.   
  
  “Magicians pull sparklers outta their asses, I use old languages to light people on fire. I also can’t saw you in half.” Mickey says, curtly. “I could try, but I think stupider people already have.”   
  
  “Hey, I’ve almost got cut in half plenty a’ times.” Cassidy says, hard stare. “Some a’ those times were of my own doin’.”   
  
  “Again,” Mickey says, brows cocked upwards to challenge the smug, curling sneer on his face. “Stupider people already have.”   
  
   He gets a bit of a hard cuff on the back of the head for the comment, an outcome he fully expected and returned with the same level of horseplay with a shared measure of smug laughter and kindly ill-intent. They carry on for an aimless minute before the two concede and move back to their rightful spot at the bar rather than amidst the booze-slick floors and splinters of the defaced prop barstools.   
  
   “Annville’s ashes are a far cry from Louisiana, Cass. You don’t just roam unless you’re up to something.” Mickey says, leaning hard against the side of the bar. “So, you’re definitely up to something, or did the genesis tell you to go all ‘House of the Rising Sun’ again?”   
  
   “First, even when ya call it “The” Genesis, it still sounds like shite.” He says, reaching over the bar and copping a glass from the ramshackle rack besides the tap, “Second, y’gotta quit using the damn tap water to clean these glasses, Mick-“   
  
   “Oh, certainly, king of the battery-acid old fashioned, I’ll use bottled water from now on.” Mickey says, arms crossing over his chest. “Cut the shit, Cassidy. The hell are you doing back in Bonn Nui after all this time?”   
  
   A silence falls between them, the record scratching, shrill and fuzzy from overuse through the decade. Acoustic guitars do nothing to soften the blow of the final explanation.   
  
  “I needed a break.” He says, patting the pockets of his coat for any spare cigarette he could find to ensure that nobody was making eye-contact, jamming it between his teeth to further muffle the comment. “I’m old as dirt, I think I should be allowed t’ want a break from all this shite.”   
  
   Mickey’s hand extends faster than his words do, a small snap of the fingers to summon a small blue flame as it lights the end of the cigarette. He doesn’t snuff it out, letting the fire grow and kindle around his hand and rolling it between his fingers with a languid calmness.   
  
   “You’re impossible,” his voice is quiet, steadily laughing to himself in the unspoken understanding that this visit isn’t a stop on one inane job- but a mission of its own kind, one to forget tragedy at the first chance he’s given. He comes for a good night on a bad night, and not even an impromptu magical fistfight would stop him. “You come here, get the absolute shit kicked outta you by some bolo-tie wearing, mustache-having werewolf, and now you’re just brooding into a fuckin’ orphaned Newport you just found hanging out inside your pocket.”

   The blue flame flickers out, and Mickey rubs at Cassidy’s jaw with an earnest resignation when he tries to retort, his interrupted defense manifesting as a pale haze of smoke.

   “If people could stop hurting you for about, what, ten seconds? Maybe even thirty? Would that be so much to ask for in a little  _ ‘Our father?’  _ or some shit? Just a little break, even,” Mickey mutters. “Not that old  _ Elohim's  _ still handing out golden tickets or whatever, after what you and your gaggle said about him being straight up  _ gone.”  _

_   “ _ Are ya absolutely  _ positive  _ you didn’t get a degree in psychotherapy or something?” Cassidy gives a wry smile, mimicking the same jaw-touching gesture. The sarcasm is coded, Mickey realizes immediately. If he was capable of saying thanks and not being left with that sense of exposure, he would. In its place, there’s acknowledgment in a fleeting moment. But, for now, Mickey fusses at the other end of the liquor stock and returns with a bottle of single malt. It clatters against the bar with all the demanding weight in the world, and that gets a genuine laugh, with the cigarette snubbed on the back of his hand. “You  _ did!  _ This’ bribery, Mick. That’s a psychological thing. ”

  “It’s not  _ bribery  _ if I know you’re not going to talk about something. It’s-“ Mickey pauses, teeth worrying at his lower lip until he comes to the conclusion he could sufficiently use. “It’s the prize for winning our  _ completely real  _ bar fight and  _ not  _ being knocked on your ass by a werewolf.”

  “You’re a piss poor liar, Mickey Leavy,” Cassidy says, pointed with all the fake good cheer he can muster, but the smile still shows through. “But, at least you’re a better-“He cuts himself off as his eyes drop lower for a second to make a note of the blooming, inky discolored cross-shaped scar wrapping against the bartender’s neck where his hand had begun to rub sheepishly. “Did ya get a bleedin’  _ neck tattoo _ and just not say nothin’ about it?”

   Mickey watches Cassidy set his drink down, for the express purpose of beckoning him closer with one hand, the heel of his palm pushing up under Mickey’s chin to bear his neck easier under the neon glow of the PBR sign and flickering hanging lamps above the bar. Mickey’s hand holds limply against his wrist, a thinly veiled invitation to keep the position, or a sign of slight worry about rough hands tracing against the sensitive cross and coffin markings against his neck. He expects himself to pull away, to flinch in fear and abject rejection of the newfound intimacy.

  “This’s a voodoo thing, innit?” Cassidy finally says, still tracing the central coffin of the veve pattern embossed against Mickey’s throat, “For those spirits of death.”

  “ _Vodun_. Haitian Vodun.” Mickey says, his voice stifled by the position of his head. “It’s a mark of Samedi, given to me by, _er,_ ” His voice trails. “Not a tattoo.”

   “Well, I’m seein’ that now, it looks like someone gored your neck and covered the damage in sharpie.” He bites back, making note of the nature of the etching and the rise in the flesh. “You keep asking about _ me _ , but what’s  _ your  _ deal? I wanna know about  _ this. _ ”

  The hand hasn’t left his neck, and maybe he prefers that it stay there. Mickey falls silent, trying to recollect how much he could honestly say without running the risk of the world’s most Byronic soliloquy. His hand falters, slightly squeezing at the vampire’s wrist as if to say ‘ _ There is gravity and depravity in this story, dear.’  _ when no words can suffice. He speaks in a measured quiet.

   “A couple years back, I,  _ y’know,  _ dabbled a little bit in blood magic. That shit that people  _ really  _ tell you not to do? It’s the synthetic weed of magic,” Mickey makes a point to tell the joke, but moves on before it really has a chance to register as anything more than mildly self-deprecating. “I used  _ Baron Kriminel,  _ a spirit of the first violence, as a well to draw power from through my own blood to stop a fight from happening in the bar.”

  “And?”

  “And Baron Kriminel fed off of my desire for retribution. Two little snaps of my fingers and everyone flew back like some Jedi bullshit.  _ Everyone _ knocked through bars and tables, glasses, windows, the whole nine yards.” His expression wavers for a moment, pangs of regret taking over in full. “So, I killed some bad people and some  _ good, good  _ people; and in return, all I got was a shitty neck tattoo from a spirit of death.”

  “All things considered, it’s not  _ awful,”  _ Cassidy says, finally moving his hands away and returning Mickey’s own neck-autonomy to him. “At least it looks like somethin’.”

   Mickey squints behind his glasses, brows furrowed. “Looks like? You’re one to talk, seeing as how it took you until  _ just now  _ to notice it.”

   The comment gets his attention, and Cassidy looks up from the half-filled glass he had been attending to, expression reading nothing but confusion. “Don’ get all huffy with me, it ain’t any of my business what you get done. Besides, I’m easily distracted.”

   “And what distracted you from realizing I’ve got a supernatural  _ neck tattoo? _ ” 

   “When we met, I didn’t notice it ‘cause I might’ve been a  _ little  _ high.” He says, fingers barely pinched together to show just how minute that chance would be.

   “Better make those fingers touch floor to ceiling, Cass. If I didn’t know better I’d think you fix air conditioning units to get high off of radiator fluid.” Mickey’s smile is violent and sharp but carries a vague air of endearment. “You were  _ definitely _ high because I had bribed you with  _ more  _ drugs to help out with my little problem.”

   “Yeah, that’s the distractin’ part.” He says, flatly.

  “What, my little problem?” Mickey asks, leaning harder against the bar, knowing full well that his little request was outright the most outlandish thing he could have possibly pulled on first meeting someone, besides possibly outright asking for them to assist in a murder.

  “Yeah, you came up t’ me and asked if I could, and I quote, ‘pin you to a wall and make out with you until the guy with the briefcase left the bar’.” He gestures with the near-empty bottle, neck tapping against Mickey’s sternum. “So I did, an’ when briefcase-boy got too close, ya lit his shirt on fire and made him scream like a storm siren  _ without letting go a’ me.” _

  Mickey blinks, hand touching at the bottle impassively. “I don’t like tax collectors, I like you, it’s not rocket science.”

  “No, but it  _ was  _ distracting.”

  The two sit in a momentary silence, eye contact kept like an impromptu game of chicken where the honesty of emotionality is on the line. If you look away first, you admit shyness or defeat. They break into a fit of laughter within seconds, their mind game crumbling into inconsolable dust.  

  When he collects himself, Mickey runs his hand through his hair, slow breaths keeping him from breaking into another soundless, wheezing fit. “And I’d ask you to do it again, too,” Mickey says, quietly, earning a raised brow mid-sip of a drink. “I just like seeing you, when I can. You’re a good time.”

   The glass clinks softly against the bar at the trailing off of the final statement, and he stands up slowly to inch even closer still to Mickey, who only backs against the edge of the bar as a challenge to close the gap, to come closer. Cassidy accepts the challenge in full, pressing as close as decency and the tangibility of the bar would allow. His hand ghosts against Mickey’s hip, steady and assured.

   “Don’t tell me you  _ missed  _ me,” Mickey says, hand resting against the small of his back. “Or, really, is this about what got you bothered enough to be a mean drunk to that dog, tonight?”

  “Maybe I just want to be happy.” He says, simply. “That too much of a hard sell?

  “No, no.” Mickey repeats himself, hand languidly tracing against the curve of his spine. “The world sucks, let’s take what we can get.”

   There’s no banter to follow, not unless a kiss could count as banter, but by the judge of how earnest and slow it is, the need for banter falls to the wayside. The sappy tenderness only lasts for a fleeting moment, before devolving back into the standard biting and clinging and kneeing that they had established as the leitmotif of their relationship- comical, needy, and outright bothersome to anyone within their vicinity. 

   It isn’t until Mickey’s back forms ungodly acute angle against the flat surface of the bar, his free arm the only thing propping himself up and keeping him from being laid out against the bar that he thinks of all the patrons and their wandering eyes. When his arm falters against the weight of their bodies, he considers briefly the idea of situationally blinding those same eyes for a moment. It’s at this same moment his arm gives out with a notable  _ crack _ , and he ends up flat on his back on the bartop with a vampire laughing into the crook of his neck. He hears the phrase “ _ Glass-bone-having-dumbass”  _ if only faintly, but it stills the stinging of his shoulder having shortly abandoned it’s socket. 

   He doesn’t get it at first, blearily blinking into the red lights above him and processing the pain in his arm and back, but then he sees a figure out of the corner of his eye. Mickey recognizes the bulk of the dark figure and upright hair, hazy grey eyes blinking down at him with a still-wet with gore Louisville slugger tangled in barbed wire hanging limply over his shoulder. His lip curls into a cloying sneer, playful and disgusted all at once. 

   “I see the misanthropic, drunken losers are finally back together again.” He muses, his free hand cocked firmly against his hip. “And none of you are on the floor, this time.”

   Cassidy turns his head slightly, giving a side-eye to the figure before turning his face away and breaking into another stifled fit. He extends his arm towards the man, giving a mechanical middle finger.

   “Benny, I say this with all th’ love I can give you, but for God’s sake, fuck off.”  He says, gesture turning to a thumbs up. 

  “‘m not a goddamned’-“ Mickey mutters, wiggling slightly under the heroin wraith-weight of the man on top of him. “Lemme- _ get- _ “ his muttering is futile, only earning a small nip to the unmarked side of his neck, his free hand visibly tensing against his back in small, clingy scratches. Benny makes a noise of blatant disapproval.

   “Either you’re screwing with me, or one of you has a thing for exhibitionism,” Benny says, shaking his head to hide a knowing smile. “I’ll leave you clowns alone, I’ve gotta go pick up something for Scarlett’s performance, tonight.” 

  “Don’t you have to be a narc somewhere else?” Mickey asks Benny, despite the fact his gaze fixates on the lights above him, more concerned about the physical contact than what Benny and Scarlett might be up to. It’s none of  _ his  _ business, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t get a chance to harp on him, too.

   “Not ‘til midnight, boss.” Benny says, hands up in mock resignation.

   Benny leaves the same way he had entered, quickly and quietly through the side door of the bar, curt and kind. When Cassidy finally decides to pull away from Mickey, letting the quasi-shorter bartender sit up and roll his shoulder back into place, he sits back down in his chair at the bar, raising the once-unattended glass to Mickey in a mock celebration.

   “To the misanthropic, drunken losers.” He announces coyly. Mickey snatches the near-emptied bottle and raises it likewise in a toast.

  “To giving Benny a migraine twice in one night.” He says, a single nod of dramatic bravado coming through, before looking back and smiling a comically forced smile.

  “ _ To getting Lucky.”  _ They say, in a stilted unison; both fully aware of all the terrible puns and shitty implications they had brought forth.

 

_   To being happy,  _ Mickey thinks,  _ that’s the implication _ .

  
  



End file.
